The Administrator of the Northern Beaches Council has a regular column in the Manly Daily on Saturdays. Manly Daily 1.10.16 Mr Persson states:- "I mentioned in last week's column that the up-coming Council meeting had a busy agenda. Last Tuesday evening saw around 150 people attend the meeting in the Mona Vale Memorial Hall". "The other item that drew a crowd was the proposal to release the Mona Vale Place Plan for public exhibition. Pittwater Council had spent considerable time and effort with extensive community engagement as part of the process, something that was widely acknowledged by the speakers, all of who supported the plan's release". "The Plan is about creating a centre that is less dominated by cars, that has a vibrant night time economy and that provides more affordable housing, particularly for younger people currently priced out of both the ownership and rental markets". See "What is Affordable Housing" http://savemonavale.weebly.com/affordable-housing-in-mona-vale See feedback on "Pittwater Council spending considerable time and effort with extensive community engagement as part of the process" http://savemonavale.weebly.com/mona-vale-place-plan---document-of-deception.html Manly Daily 8.10.16
A MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR In today’s column I would like to clarify a number of issues about Council processes. Particularly about matters that are approved by Council to be placed on public exhibition for community consultation. Some matters are required under the Local Government Act to be formally placed on exhibition (usually for between 28 and 40 days) before a final decision can be made. This process ensures the community has the opportunity to have their say before the matter is brought back to Council. In these situations the final Council paper usually provides a summary of the responses and often highlights the issues that have been accepted or not. Of course as soon as a matter is put on exhibition the debate begins. In our case it is usually played out in the letters pages of the Manly Daily. Unfortunately this often leads to errors being presented as fact. Manly Daily news stories, on the other hand, are usually more accurate and reliable. For a Council to put a draft proposal on exhibition it is likely the majority of Councillors agree with it to some significant degree, That doesn’t mean they don’t consider the community responses, or that they never change their mind. In many circumstances the Mayor may choose to argue the merits of the draft proposal. With a Council under Administration the Administrator is in a slightly more complicated situation. Because they are the final decision maker it is difficult for them to argue for one side or the other without people feeling there is no point in expressing their opinion during the consultation phase. Some good examples highlighting this predicament involve some of the issues currently on exhibition. Take the draft Mona Vale Place Plan for example. This was a plan prepared by staff of the old Pittwater Council over a number of years, and involved extensive community engagement. The draft Plan contains some contentious elements which are now under fire, with some of the comments/claims being made in the letters pages being wrong or factually incorrect. The community is getting very little information about many of the positive elements of the Plan. Some other matters currently on exhibition are the Entitlements for Councillors, the Coastal Erosion Policy, the Golf Course/Sportsfield Review and the Manly Swimming Centre Fitness Centre fees and charges. As Administrator I won’t be getting into the community debate, other than to correct the record about my own views and statements. My request to residents interested in these types of issues is to go online to the Council website, or obtain the documents from one of our Customer Service Centres, and read the policy documents to form your own opinion. Dick Persson AM [email protected] Concerns in the community is that the Mona Vale Place Plan was not approved to go on public exhibition by a "Council" as such as currently Northern Beaches Council is made up of an Administrator and Staff. It is the Administrator that approved the document for exhibition. The term spoken of "have their say before the matter is brought back to Council" is interesting in that there is no Council to bring the matter back to, it is brought back to the Administrator. The Administrator has the same power as the Mayor and all Councillors combined and decisions that would normally be required to go before a full Council can be made by the Administrator. Mr Persson states - "In our case it is usually played out in the letters pages of the Manly Daily. Unfortunately this often leads to errors being presented as fact. Manly Daily news stories, on the other hand, are usually more accurate and reliable" And "The draft Plan contains some contentious elements which are now under fire, with some of the comments/claims being made in the letters pages being wrong or factually incorrect". Is this fair for Mr Persson to say this? It is a statement not supported by any evidence presented by Mr Persson. What errors is he referring to? The statement is undermining peoples right to have their say in Letters to the Manly Daily and for those letters to have credibility. If Mr Persson wishes to make statements such as this he should back them up with a description of what he considers not to be inaccurate. Mr Persson states - "In many circumstances the Mayor may choose to argue the merits of the draft proposal". The issue the community is having is that there is no Mayor to argue merits of the draft proposal and there won't be until September 2017 and any decision on the Mona Vale Place Plan should be put off until then.
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